Bad news for those who thought they could escape Bluebooking by going into Chinese law: there's now a (literally) Bluebook for Chinese law as well. (Well, a proposed draft of one, anyway.) It's published by the Beijing University Press and was compiled by the indefatigable Wei LUO of the Washington University Law Library with the support of Zhu Suli and He Weifang, dean and professor respectively at Beijing University Faculty of Law.

International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) is looking to recruit full-time, experienced criminal defense lawyers as Regional Program Managers to be based at IBJ’s offices in China. Regional Program Managers will be responsible for managing regional project activities and providing expert training and advice. Candidates must have significant experience as a criminal defense practitioner with an emphasis on trial work, and experience designing, delivering and evaluating training programs. Candidates must be fluent in English; knowledge of Mandarin Chinese is strongly preferred, though not required. Applicants of all nationalities are welcome.

On Dec. 4th (Law Day in China), Beijing University Faculty of Law professor He Weifang, along with 68 other signatories (not all legal academics), sent a formal proposal to the National People‘s Congress requesting that it review the system of re-education through labor (RETL) for constitutionality (more precisely, unconstitutionality). The proposal (a text of which I have not seen) apparently also makes objections on the grounds that RETL is inconsistent with the Law on Administrative Punishments and the Law on Legislation. The arguments will be familiar to most readers of this blog; essentially, that restrictions on personal liberty must be sanctioned by law (i.e., something passed by the National People's Congress or its Standing Committee), which RETL is (in the view of the signatories) not.

One argument against this position has always been that RETL was, in fact, sanctioned by a 1957 resolution of Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and by another one in 1979. Thus, if the purpose of the requirement of a basis in "law" for detention is to ensure that the NPC or the NPCSC approves and that lower-level organs not get out of control, it seems a bit unconvincing to argue that because the document was called a "resolution" it should be treated differently from a law. Now perhaps it makes sense to distinguish if the procedures for passing resolutions are different from those for passing laws. But that the highest legislative body in the country approves of RETL can't really be doubted; it's not something the police just made up in 1957 and that nobody at the NPC level hasn't noticed for 50 years. The news account of the proposal's arguments doesn't mention this angle at all; I don't know whether the arguments addressed it or simply ignored it.